Oh What a Feeling, When You're Dancing On The Ceiling!
by hansardfanfiction
Summary: A typical medical case for House, involving Uncle Albert from Mary Poppins. But then they run into anti-fascist protesters, and that's when the trouble really starts. Who will survive in America?
1. Teaser

_I would like to dedicate this fic to the recently cancelled show Big Ideas. It appears that our withering nation was too small for you._

Michael Banks had seen many odd things since Mary Poppins had been hired to nanny him and his little sister Jane, but Uncle Albert's house wasn't one of them. The main features were brown patterned carpet and wooden walls, and a roof much higher than was typical.

Uncle Albert was a round man who talked too loudly and laughed too much. There was something unsettling about him, but Michael assumed that it was rude to stare.

'Welcome children!' he spattered, 'come and have some tea!'

Mary nodded at Michael and Jane, telling the children to have tea with the scary man. She said to him 'Tell me you haven't been laughing again, Uncle Albert.'

Michael saw the man shake his head. 'No Mary. I've found the perfect cure for my condition – newspapers!' He read from a tattered copy of the Guardian in his hands. 'War, politics, Justin Bieber.'

A snort erupted from Michael's face.

'Yes?' Uncle Albert raised a critical eyebrow, as if offended.

'I'm so, so sorry, Uncle Albert,' said Michael, trying hold his face together in the face of hilarious entropy. 'It's just that you listed Justin Bieber at the end of a list of bad things. That's comedy gold. What next? Don't tell me, Twilight jokes?'

'As a matter of fact…'

'Michael, I think it best that you stick to tea drinking from here on out.' Said Mary Poppins.

'I know a good joke!' chirped Jane. 'What do you call a man with no feet?'

'I don't know,' said Uncle Albert, placing his china cup on the table in preparation of a laughquake.

Mary Poppins shot Uncle Albert a warning look. 'Don't push yourself Albert. The moment – the MOMENT – you think of anything funny, just imagine you're watching Two and a Half Men, please, just imagine a laugh track.'

Uncle Albert was braver than his Clive-Palmer like frame indicated. 'I can't avoid the gags forever. Tell me little girl, what do I call a man with no feet?'

'His name! He's a human being, goddamnit!' Jane exploded into a cosmos of laughter.

A sound came from Uncle Albert, hollow and robotic hilarious honks.

Mary Poppin's eyes lit up. 'You've done it Albert! Fake laughter!'

'You're right, by gum!' exclaimed Uncle Albert while slurping a cup of piping hot green tea. 'You tell me a joke, boy!'

'Knock knock!'

'Who's there!' said Albert, face set with the concrete of stoicism.

'DEATH!' shouted Michael.

A peal of chuckles escaped from the side of Albert's lips, like a violent fart from between tightly clenched buttocks. His face turned red as his entire being rose from the table, like a later day Simon Magus, and floated against that high roof.

'Not again!' groaned Mary Poppins as her uncle was reduced to idiotic chuckling.

Michael saw Uncle Albert clutch at this chest and roll up into a foetal position.

'He's having a heart attack!' Mary Poppins was calm in emergencies, because she tended to start most of them. 'Jane, go get Bert!'


	2. Title Sequence

Do do do do do do do do do do

House is such a grump

An ugly little mean grump

I don't see why anyone puts up with him

Do do ad od od de do doa dod de do doe do

The image of bone x-ray expands your field of vision, as the names of actors flash across the screen. Hugh Laurie. Julie Andrews. Brian Blessed. Will Smith. Topher Grace. Kenneth Williams. The Rock. Stephen Fry. Claire Danes.

Gum drops in a tire are

Is anyoooooone?

Theee-ree-e—e-e-e?


	3. Cuddy Talks to House

House was sitting at his desk playing with his Pocket Pikachu. No, that's not a euphemism, according to Wikipedia it's a sort of hybrid-Tamagotchi-pedometer sold by Nintendo in the nineties. You may ask why House, medicine doctor and all-round grump, owned one, to which the answer is because he is a character with both depth and breadth.

'Pikachu, why can't I be happy?!' says House through clenched teeth.

'Pika-no!' says Pikachu. The Wikipedia page said nothing about the speakers, but, well, there you go.

Cuddy opened the door of House's office, because that's generally what you do with doors, walked in, and started talking to him.

'House!' she began. 'I've got a new patient lined up for you.'

'Oh yeah?' said House. 'I bet she's all sicky and terminalish!'

'You could say that,' said Cuddy, cause if she wanted to take that sort of shit all day she'd be some sort of colonialist. 'You can also say that if you don't take this seriously the hospital board with fire you so fast you won't have time to interrogate the metaphor!'

'Aww man!' groaned House, sulking in his backwards baseball cup and torn jeans. Was he joking? Was he serious? I dunno man, but I can tell you one thing; that's House for you. 'Why do I have to look at all these gross people? Is it because I'm a doctor?'

Cuddy held a fat Cuban cigar between her two fingers as she said 'We've been through this House. You're terrible at everything except for yelling at junior doctors until the correct wacky-' she held her hands next to her ears and shook them. 'diagnosis is found. Remember that job you had as a door-to-door colostomy bag salesman?'

'Yes.' House looked down at his feet in shame.

'Remember how people started selling you their used colostomy bags, you were that bad?' asked Cuddy.

'Yes.'

'Well that's why you have to go and diagnose the everloving shit outta this pommy blimp dude!' With that line, Cuddy strolled out of House's office.


	4. Albert Hospital

House limped and complained his way to the exotic patients ward, ignored the band of merry drunks with tomato sauce bottles wedged up the unlikeliest of places, dodged the used beds lining the hospital hallways, and made a ham sandwich before finally seeing the mysterious Mr Albert Poppins.

At first, House thought that someone had tied a Thanksgiving balloon to a hospitable bed in an empty room as a prank. Most likely Wilson, House mused with a wry smile playing on his meagre lips. That Wilson, what a wally.

But then House saw the puddle of urine, faeces and vomit that formed a sort of biological shadow under the parade balloon. House, being the medical analogue of Sherlock Holmes (the nice Yank one, not the dickish Pommy one), concluded that these medical samples came from the weather balloon, and _apso kikpo_, the balloon was human. It was these sudden flashes of insight that made up for the fact that House was a terrible person.

'Help me,' wheezed the balloon. 'I'm … dying, of laughter.'

Fair point, thought House, best keep the ol' sarcasm on the down low. 'What's your address?'

'Why do you need my address?' asked the balloon. The wind pushed the face side towards House; he could LITERALLY see the confusion on Albert's face.

'Look, patients lie, everybody lies-' House licked his lips, as though he'd just had a revelation. Should he say 'everybody lies?' more often? Lord knows he needed a catchphrase. '-and that includes you. Gimme your deets, and me and my bestie Whammo Wilson will break into your house and give you a diagnosis based on your lifestyle and sociocultural situation.'

'In that case, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, United Kingdom.' Sputtered the human blimp.

'Rightio,' said House. 'How about them symptoms then?'

Albert's tiny bloated arms indicated his floating frame. 'Take a look, dumbass.' The uncle remembered that he was meant to be British, so he said. 'Chip chop pip pop.'

'Uhuh, right,' nodded House, not really listening. 'Listen, I'll have to cut you off there. I've got the whiteboard lined up. My crew of top diagnozzles are gonna be on your case like a frog on a motherflipping lilypad. See ya later feraligater.' With that, he clicked at the depressed balloon man and rapidly backwards moonwalk out of the room, duly avoiding all urine puddles. Like a mensch.


	5. Diagnosis by Whiteboard

Chase rocked and rolled on the ocean, visions of boats dancing across his frenzied vision. Boats filled with desperate people played at the edges of their consciousness. Chase was a border guard, charged with protecting the territorial integrity of his great nation. How could these people forget to get their documents signed? What sort of monster, when fleeing from genocide and persecution, forgets to ask the government that's persecuting them permission to escape?! It broiled his bladder just to think about it. Chase wet himself as he woke up, and not in the fun way either. Lying under his novelty John Howard print duvet, he looked to the red-wig wearing mannequin next to him, Pauline.

As Chase performed the actions between getting out of bed and attending his daily Diagnosis White Session (DWS), he reflected that relationship between him and House was like that of Mr Squiggle and Blackboard. He was the byronic genius, the artist with everything to give, while House was a grumbling void who took all the credit.

The doctors lounged around the room, looking at their watches and waiting for the Chief Boobah to arrive. (House insisted on the term, what a deep character. Seriously, you could hide a decommissioned Decepticon in that character.)

The door opened, because that's what doors do if left to their own devices, to reveal everyone's favourite misanthropic doctor.

'Heyva!' he said, shaking his hands. 'Let's get our diagnosis auggghn.'

'Sure thing, House.' Said Eric Foreman. 'I just gotta ask, is that guy really high?'

'Ayep.' Nodded House. 'High as a kite.'

'Could it be Helium?' Asked Cameron.

'The signs don't match.' Disputed Forman with a disputatory manner. 'He doesn't have a high pitched voice.'

'Rightio.' Said House. He wrote HELIUM on the whiteboard and crossed it out emphatically.

Chase felt he should say something. 'I reckon it could be a build-up of gas. Maybe he hasn't been burping right, or the farts just won't come out.'

House wrote GASTRO on the whiteboard. 'It could be that.'

'Didja ask Albert when it started?' Chase said, being aware of the patient's name and history from the notes he'd read that morning, being a competent doctor.

Cameron was concerned, because her upbringing told her it was the right thing to do. 'We're forgetting the heart attack.'

'No worries sheilla, my gas theory take care of that. The gas has expanded so much that there's no room for that tiny heart to beat.' Just like mine, Chase wept inwardly.

Foreman scratched the palm of his hand. 'House, I assume that you and Whammo are going to go on one of your infamous House calls. You should look for any children's balloons or helium.'


	6. House Call

Cut to House charging down the trans-Atlantic highway on his motorbike, the Harmony Dodger. The highway was jammed with broken doctors on a last chance power pill, everyone's booking seats tonight but there's no space left to hide. The Harmony Dodger was covered in images of burning naked robots engaging in immoral acts, such as intentionally writing incorrect citations in philosophy essays. Sitting in the sidebob attached to the motorbike was House's constant companion, Whammo Wilson. The wind combed Whammo's oil black locks into a mullet not unlike the one sported by Superman in the early nineties.

'Can we have some music, House?!' screamed Whammo Wilson, wearing black goggles to prevent being blinded by starfish dust.

'Sure thing Whammo.' Replied House in a screaming fashion. He punched the Harmony Dodger's tape deck and it started playing a mixtape of house remixes of ABBA songs.

'Let's say we get a wiggle on, eh?' House said laconically. On the dashboard of the Harmony Dodger was a button emblazoned with the image of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. He attacked it with his left thumb, and suddenly medicinal flames sprutted out of the Harmony Dodger's back smoke pipes.

'Wowweeeeeeeeeee!' shrieked House's only real friend, also a child psychiatrist, as the Harmony Dodger shifted into hyperspace. Within a second the doctorly duo were within the merry old land of England.

Securing the Harmony Dodger and the sidebob to Stonehenge using a bicycle chain made from kidney stones and pipe cleaners, the medicine men marched to the other side of England.

'Look at that, House, It's where they filmed QI!' said Whammo Wilson, pointed at a building that resembled a giant glittery snail shell.

'We're Americans. We not allowed to know about QI!' wept House silently.

A few steps later, House saw the Leaning Tower of Yorkshire.

It pulled a cigarette frown betwixt its concrete lips, and tugged down its flap cap towards the two American AMA members (Members of the American Medical Association) in a show of ostentatious respect. The mountain range it was leaning on with one arm, the British Alps, suffered a small avalanche from the kinetic energy released in that motion.

'Can I help you lads?' asked the Tower.

'Errh, yes.' Said Whammo Wilson. Whammo Wilson wasn't one of those pitiful telly Americans intimidated by British accents. After all, it wasn't the British who'd dropped a nuclear bomb on an unarmed civilian population. In his heart of child psychologist hearts, he knew that that was all that really mattered. 'We're looking for Regent Park.'

The Tower drew a map in the mud. 'We're in Swindon, which is a real place, I shit you not. I thought Jasper Fforde made it up for his books, which are great, but no, someone decided that Swindon was actually a good name for a village. Jesus, makes you think, don't it? Anyway, walk down the M1 for fifteen minutes and you'll be in East Cheam. London is one of the poorer suburbs of East Cheam, it's the one where nothing the residents say make any sense. They call it rhyming slang, but we know better, don't we? Regent Park is a golf course, I'm guessing you want to play with some little white balls with dents on.'

House cleared his throat. 'Actually, we're very professional doctors looking to ransack a patient's house.'

'For his own good, of course.' Added Whammo Wilson hastily.

'Ooh look at you.' Said the Tower. 'You looking for Albert Poppins, the blimp goon? Come on now, don't muck about.'

The two doctors followed the Tower's directions. They were unstintingly accurate, which makes sense if you think about it, because a tower's got to see everything around it.

Albert Poppin's house was brown on the inside and out. The carpet was brown, the furniture was brown. To write a book on Albert's choice of décor, just put a noun at the start of a sentence ending in 'was brown.' House's main impression of the house was that Albert used a lot of brown in his decorating.

Whammo Wilson's first instinct when going a'burgling was to search for drugs and furbies. He found neither and was furious. He expressed his legitimate emotions by rifling through Albert's underwear drawer while crying.

With the two ears on the side of his head he heard House shout 'Tell me if you find any helium enemas!'

''Do you even know what an enema is?!' calmly hollered House's only friend.

Whammo Wilson was now down to the last drawer on this chest of drawers. It seemed to be filled with depressing books and rotting newspapers. Some had slightly stupid names, like _Battlelines,_ _Not Your Average Joe_,_ Conservative Revolution_, and _Mr Apathy_. Why would Albert hide these books?

House strutted into the room like a four-wheel peacock. 'The only strange thing I've found here is a lack. Albert Poppins has no comedy DVDs.'

Whammo Wilson's head spun around like an owl, his eyes bulging red with curiosity. 'What, not even Big Bang Theory?'

Houses nodded ominously.

'And I saw another thing.' House continued to continue saying, saying that 'There are marks on the roof of the kitchen. I think that this is not the first time that Uncle Albert has gotten high.'


	7. Interrogation

Albert's room was exactly how House left it, except covered in more bodily fluids, including tears.

'Why didn't you tell us that you've floated before?' House said.

'What?' Albert swivelled around to face his obnoxious diagnozzle. 'Sorry, I didn't see you there. What were you saying?'

'You lied to us when you said this was your first floatation experience!'

'Sorry, I don't remember saying that. Are you sure you're reading your notes right?'

Dammny-dammny-do! said House's internal dialogue, who was being voiced by Scooby-Doo that week.

'Hey, did you get any books?' said a visibly upset Albert.

'Sure, man.' House chucked a copy of _A Strong Australia_ towards the floating patient.

He caught and began reading that book. 'Oh man, and people really believe this crap? I tell you, one of the biggest problem with these people is that they confuse the goal with the plan, or at least their supporters do. Their goal is to fix the economy, their plan is fix the economy. What a pack of tossers.'

House had no idea what Uncle Albert was talking about, but he noticed that he was sinking. 'I've got lots of other books for you to read. Something about a Mr. Apathy?'

Uncle Albert's feet were now touching the bed. Moroseness seemed to correlate to density, at least as far as Uncle Albert was concerned. This meant that House couldn't alert him to his apparent recovery, and that he had to distract for as long as possible. This situation was familiar, did it come up in one of those Discworld books?

The grumpy doctor threw a book at Albert's stomach. 'Nurse! Nurse! Our patient has had a complication!'

A SWAT team of nurses kicked the door down and tied Albert to his bed.


	8. Consequences

Cuddy made an angry face. 'House, you can't just throw books at people.'

House peered at her over his mirrored sunglasses. 'Baby, I'm a doctor, I can throw books at whoever I want. Whadaya wanna do, tell how to live my doctor life?'

Cuddy laughed. 'If you say it like, I don't see why not.'


	9. Chase has a Thought

House and his underlings were again brainstorming possible cures for an unlikely patient.

'I reckon – now jus' bear wi'me mates, I reckon dat until we get a moore permanint qu-ore for Albort we oughta mak'im live in da Mortality Ward.' said Chase in a nasal tone, the corks on his felt akubra hat glinting portentously in the afternoon sunlight.

'Chase, that's brilliant.' Said Cameron. She's the ethical one.

'I see where you're going, Bondi Vet,' Foreman agreed. 'Reminding Albert of his own death is the most depressing thing we can do to him.'

'Wi shud alsoo shoot all da clowns at da hozpitle.' Shined the whites of Cameron's teeth. 'And ensure dat dere's a twintyfoor hoor noos channle in ebery rooom Albort's in.'

'Home run!' said Foreman, slamming a fist into his palm, a genuinely American gesture.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House disembowelled an orang-utan with his elbows.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

House nodded.

'This is one of my more ingenious plans, I know, but it's only a stopgap cure dammit.' Loudly whispered House.

'Simint shoooooooos.' Regally intoned Chase. 'Lined clothing, make him too heavy to float.'


	10. Underlings Gasbag about Episode

Eric Foreman stood with his colleagues, Cameron and Chase, behind a one-way mirror and watched the Mortality Ward patients cope with their impending deaths, like playing chicken with infinity. He wondered what his ex-wife, Donna, would think of him now. It ground his gears to think of what she and Fes were doing right now. At nights Eric had visions of his one-time best friend, Basement Glasses Afro, bursting out into peals of laughter when he confessed his wish to attend medical school. He'd get them all, he swore at that moment, especially Ashton bloody Kutscher. That's what Eric loved about vouyering on the dying; it gave him both a sense of perspective and grandeur.

'He seems to be deflated,' said Cameron. 'Like a birthday balloon, a fortnight after.'

'Tie me kangarooo down sheilla!' calmly exclaimed Chase. 'I dun reckon yoor ryte-a-rooney!'

The colleagues seemed to be right. Albert's expression was balanced perfectly between ecstasy and agony, a mere mortal moon of ambivalence. The important thing was that his figure wasn't hugging the roof, it may be possible to bring him outdoors. Albert was chained to a bedpost by a chain of hospital wristbands. Underneath him were scattered (rather optimistically) a requirement room's worth of bedpans. Nurses with Rebelle nerf crossbows tried to aim ham sandwiches into his mouth while burly sadistic janitors tried to squirt Solo into his mouth with water pistols.

Eric pressed the special button on the mirror, with the one with the image of Henry Jenkins talking into a tiny dial phone. He talked into a microphone, his voice coming out on the special House speakers implanted within the nurse's craniums.

'Dial down the slapstick people.' Said Eric Foreman in a sorrowing voice. 'Present a seminar series on the First World War; I hear it's big in Londonistan. No one is allowed to laugh at that stuff, its borderline blasphemous.'

The nurses at Our Lady of Grumpy-Asses Princetown-Plansborough-Pembly hospital really were the cream of the crop at their small part of America. They all had phds in why Europeans must not allowed to fight war on their own continent, and proceeded to read them out to the floaty man. The janitors provided tasteful re-enactments of the most understated deaths of the war, faking heart attacks, lolling around on the floor and miming Spanish influenza. The non-Albert patients weren't impressed, but Chase could see that Albert was falling down faster than the walls of Jericho after a few tequila shots. This method may not be exactly 'ethical', reflected Cameron a tad bombastically, but House would approve and therefore that was the most important thing.

'Anyway.' said Eric Foreman. 'Magical realism is bullshit.'

'Is not.' Said Cameron. 'Ever heard of my man Borges?'

'Bah!' bah'd Foreman. 'Borges was little more than a blind Argentinian librarian who was obsessed with knife-fights and Gauchos, whatever they are.'

'A blind Argentinian librarian,' noted Chase with a trace of sadness in his eye. 'is one of the most dangerous things in the universe, my da always says.'

'The _Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass_ inspired to me to become the medical mite that I am today.' Verbalised Cameron.

'Bruno Schulz is little more than a Polish clone of Franz Kafka, or as we say back in my home town of 1970s America, the greatest motherflippin man who ever lived.'

Chase had a flashback to the seminary Olympics. _When I see you smile / I forget about the pedophiles / cause you're Pope Francis / if you say you are_. The words ran through his brain like Cathy Freeman down an athletics track. He had an image of him dropping the candle and starting the Grey Monday fires during the Advent Candle Relay, a track event that occurred over four weeks where seminarians had to light eachother's candles while carrying an Easter Egg and an idol of the Divine Mother in a wooden spoon in their mouths.

'As a failed seminarian, and in the eyes of many Americans therefore a successful human being, though I tend to respect all opinions, particularly when they're wrong, I think that Magical Realism is okay, if you're into that sort of thing, though at the end of the day, no one should be forced into appreciating a literary genre that they're just not ready for.' Savagely mused Chase. 'I think we should all agree to disagree, I will not introduce a carbon tax but there will be a price on Carbon under a Labor government.'

'Agreed!' cried out Eric Foreman and Cameron in eye-bulging ecstasy.

'You guys!' wept Chase with tears of joy. 'You wonderful, wonderful, wankers!'

In Chase's culturally and intellectually impoverished homeland, wanker is the highest term of affection within the local lexicon. The dictionary defines it as 'Someone who concludes a post on an online forum with the word peace.' Use it frequently next time you visit, that way the locals will know that you are, at heart, one of them.


	11. House Performs a Dodgy Medical Procedure

House stood proudly within his kitchen in his house, AKA the House-House. It was shaped like a gigantic image of his head, correct in every proportion, hair shape and spittle drop. It was paid by the gratitude of nations, and the fears of the weak. Each night, House would climb in through the rope in the left ear, and every morning would exit during the mouth. But that's not the important part. The important part is within the mouth, the garage. Here House sat upon the butterfly-leather seat of the Harmony Dodger, slowly stroking its sensual curves and planning his next medical escapade.

It was clear that he and conventional medicine had done all that they could do for Albert, they had stabilised his condition and promised him a miserable life within the walls of Princeton hospital. House wanted to do more. He was a doctor, damnit, he must doct! With uncharacteristic rage he head-butted the dashboard of his motorbike.

In a magic-like moment the engine roared into life and the radio blared with _CHOICES: ONE DIRECTION'S GREATEST HITS_, the last CD that House had left in the second-hand motorbike's tape-deck. A needling, bell-like voice spoke through the speakers. 'We can fix Albert!'

'Who's that?' House answered.

'It's me, honey, the Harmony Dodger.' The motorbike purred. 'I can shrink you down to the size of a pinhead, and you can go inside Albert Poppins for a closer look.'

'Are you magic?'

'Of course.'

House considered this major change in his worldview and this opportunity with typical alacrity. 'Sounds like a plan Afghanistan!'

House felt himself tilt forward as the motorbike nodded its agreement.

'Shouldn't we get Whammo?' asked House. 'He's always been my number two.'

'I've always been here for you, House.' The grumpy doctor heard the voice of best friend reverberate within the confines of his garage. House's friend stepped out of the darkness clutching a blood-soaked furby to his emaciated ribcage.

'Whammo? I didn't know you lived in my garage?'

'Remember season twenty? When my house was stolen by a nymphomaniac trilobites?'

'Oh yeah!' House chuckled as he folded his arms behind his head and laughed. 'Typical Whammo Wilson! So you've just been living here for the last eight years! What do you eat man?'

'Sponges and bits of old tire, with paint for flavour.' Wilson smiled bravely. 'It's not such a bad life, once you get used to it.'

'Jump in my sidebob, Whambaby, and let's roll!' commiserated the Harmony Dodger.

Whammo did, and soon the doctorly double were whizzing down the highway of life, but with one important difference. The further they got from the House-house the smaller they became, until even ants seemed like humongous modern art installations.

'Now for hyperspace!' denied the sentient motorbike.

'Woweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!' screamed the men of medicine as the Harmony Dodger hole punched space time and catapulted them directly into nervous system of Albert Poppins.

House opened his seeing eyes and saw that he was now situated within an unlikely way-out, psychedelic dreamscape. In the distance he could see stars merge into greater stars, rainbows devour each other, eyeballs rain from the heavens and dogs wearing tuxedos.

'Wilson,' he said out of the side of the head. 'Don't look now, but I think we've both attained Total Consciousness.'

'Groovy dude.' Explained Whammo Wilson.

After they dismounted the Harmony Dodger, House tied his magical motorbike to a Mr. Saturn. In front of them was a red line, probably formed of blood.

'To find the answer to Albert's problem it.' House chewed. 'we must follow the red road.'

'Indeed.'

What was House looking for? What you'd expect, clowns, balloons, that sort of thing. Balloonists. I don't actually know, I'm not a genius doctor, but a bog-standard omniscient narrator.

Under a pulsating arch of bone stood the silhouette a woman wearing a long skirt, holding an umbrella and wearing a bowler hat.

In her other hand she held a machine gun. 'Eat lead, doctor man!' screamed the woman.

One bullet hit House's feathered walking stick, and House collapsed. Another bullet hit him in the torso. It took about a second for Doctor Gregory House to die of excessive bleeding.

Whammo Wilson lived up to his name. 'Why aren't you shooting me?'

'You?' Mary Poppins snorted. 'You are but a mere oncologist. I see no pigs here – what damage can you do?'

The doctorly duo had predicted such a situation would occur sooner or later, and had a contingency plan just for such an occasion. Whammo leaned forward and vomited on the spinning ground. Fishing between the sponge chunks his finger found a teaspoon. He kneeled over House's corpse and dug into his chest with the tiny utensil, until he found what looked like a single, wizened sultana – the heart of House. The child psychiatrist threw it into his mouth like a peanut, and swallowed.

Mary Poppins collapsed to the ground, her eyes burnt by the singing of an angelic choir. _Do do do do do do do do do do, House is such a grump, An ugly little mean lump, I don't see why anyone puts up with him, Do do ad od od de do doa dod de do doe do_.

Whammo, or the body he once occupied, rose five feet above the ground and glowed like the sun. The left leg bent at an unnatural angle, the hair lightened, grizzle grew on the chin and two huge dents formed new cheekbones. With a voice deeper than the Marianas Trench, he spake: 'I AM BECOME HOUSE!'

'I confess!' Mary Poppins eluded. 'I am the cause of the inflation! I was put into the Albert's tea by Mary Poppins, so that his levity would form a moral lesson for Jane and Michael on the importance of excess.'

'I expected as much, you weird little nannite.' Said the new House. 'Luckily you've run out of bullets, or you'd get me. But what to do with you?'

House was lying, of course, (everyone does it, did you hear?) He had no idea who Mary Poppins was, but he assumed that was an arc for another episode.

Mary Poppins threw a bean on the ground and disappeared, cackling 'I'm outta here, like Richard Gear!'

'Bloody typical,' muttered House as he walked back to the Harmony Dodger.

'Watch out!' screamed Wilson's consciousness, still locked within the body he willingly shared with House. 'It's the motherflippin walrus from Pingu.'

House spun around on his axis like an incontinent planet to learn what Wilson spake was true. The Walrus was here, and there, and there, a little bit over there, and there as well, but we can't see that because the Walrus is in the way. The portrait vision of the dreaded sea-beast dominated House's eyescape. Brown leather like the most satanic leather jacket, black eyes as dead as a realtor, breath as foul as a unwashed henhouse, whiskers as subtly blasphemous as a misspelt hymn and teeth as yellow as the grave of golden gods. These descriptions are but mere signposts pointing you to something like a true comprehension of how completely and unutterably EVIL this walrus was.

House pivoted again, but in front of him was a bed with red and white cheques. It was walking towards him, without knees, but with wooden legs stretching and contracting like Hade's accordion. There was more than one, and the soiled beds corralled him towards the sea monster.

'Not so easy!' House muttered under his breath. 'I promised!'

Man makes promises. Seals laugh at them. Laugh like clowns with guns, like jackals with the flesh of the innocent bleeding on their tongues. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

House stumbled forward, pressed on the back of his knees by the beds. The Walrus, who shall remained unnamed due to my respect for the sanctity of the very concept of names, trapped House within an igloo as white as a BNP wet dream.

'I may be trapped out there.' House indicated the walls of the igloo and the worn, slightly familiar looking furniture within them. 'But with Asclepius as my witness, I am not trapped here!' House pointed at his head and heart.

Something big and red slopped through the door of the igloo, the tongue of the walrus. House clung to the furthest wall, strong in heart and bladder control.

'Here come's old smooth-head.' Wilson's voice echoed in his mind. 'he jives up pretty quick.'

A cloudy vision of Cameron's head swam infront of House's delirious eyes. 'He got vicodene addiction, only one leg.'

Now Chase's head danced around like a migraine, mocking House's very own sensory perceptions. 'They said they loved each other.'

The foyer of Eric Foreman's body, his face, joined in. 'Hanging out… down the street… same old thing… you did last weeeek.'

'What's going on?' House sang.

'We're your friends.' Chanted the voices. 'We've come in your time of need. Need you our power?'

House nodded harder than he'd ever nodded in his medical life. 'Yes!' leaked his eyeholes. 'Friends! I needst thou POWER!'

The doctor medical could feel the power justice engulf his being, looking at his hand he could feel his skin turn transparent to reveal the unheimlich muscle flowing beneath. His lower intestines were visible to the world, and the architectural ivory of his skull was displayed in total. The strength of his hands and brain were multiplied by ten, perpuled, and House suddenly had a plan.

He had forgotten what the mysterious old firewoman who'd sold him the Harmony Dodger had told him to remember. It was possible to summon the bike by clicking your tongue ten times before farting out the secret, hundredth name of God.

'GODBERT!' farted House, the little red thingy at the back of his mouth wiggling as though his mouth were a red car.

With a crash as primal as a third ocean the Harmony Dodger whizzed within the evil igloo. House leapt aboard, and road his motorbike up around the walls in circle, gritting his teeth and working up enough momentum to break the walls. Eventually he did; he arrived at the roof and saw the vision of the devil walrus rising up from the horizon like a carnivorous sun.

It lunged at him with its flippers, likely for dinner. House groaned as though stuck in the most terrible of traffic jams. From the back wheel cover of the Harmony Dodger sprouted nine beautiful peacock tails, representations of the souls of House's underlings, Cameron, Chase and Eric Foreman. Above the middle, upmost tail was a star in which burned Wilson's face. 'Get'm House!' screamed the star.

House dimly noted a choir of drunken lymphocytes, with tomato sauce bottles wedged up the most unlikeliest of orifices, singing manic Christmas carols. They split and intermingled with orgiastic decorum.

'DAEMON!' House roared at the seal, into his tunnel-like pupils. 'ABORT THYSELF!'

The doctor rode the motorbike into the air. Before gracefully backflipping onto the soft ground. He headbutted the steering wheel, thus activating the air cushion. The pillow filled the area, smothering the walrus until he died. And so did Doctor Gregory House kill mankind's oldest foe with the most doctorly of weapons; a single pillow.

The body of the Walrus turned red and disintegrated. In a penguin bar in another world a penguin felt a lot better, and ran out to post some letters. Forty years earlier two seals lying naked on a beach decided to sleep in separate beds, due to a snoring problem.

House landed on the ground in a three-point position, did a forward roll and caught what remained of the Harmony Dodger in his strong arms.

'House, I always-' purred the bike.

'Shhhhh.' House shushed. 'I know. I always knew, from the moment I met you.' He gently kissed the Harmony Dodger on the left handlebar. 'A little fall of rain can hardly hurt you now.'

After he buried the motorbike in Albert's appendix, House used his teaspoon to gouge out his left eye, which he threw onto the ground. It expanded until it took on the attitude and appearance of Whammo Wilson. A new eye rolled into place to replace the old one, like a vending machine.

'Gee, thanks House!' said the child psychiatrist.

'Anytime, Li'l buddy!' grinned House. 'Now let's go home!'


	12. House is Rude to a Former Patient

Albert sat on his bed. No, read that sentence again in a more dramatic voice, this is a big deal for him. _Albert sat on his bed. Albert SAT on his bed_. He hadn't done that for two months. But last night, when he was halfway through reading Harlen Ellison's sci-fi anthology _Dangerous Visions_ he felt the return of gravity's pull on his form.

He sat on the bed. Without weighted clothing, or restraints. Although he was again under the sway of gravity, he had never felt so free in his life.

The door opened, because that's just the way they are sometime, and through it came House and his grump face.

'So you're recovered, yeah?' asked House snottily.

'Thankyou so much. You've turned my life around. I can even laugh again.' Albert with tears in his eyes. 'Go on, tell me a joke.'

House looked him dead in the eye, and said 'Your face.'

'You know House, you know what you're firkin' problem is?' said Albert amiably. 'You think you can compensate for being a moral black hole by saving lives. Fact: you can't. But I thank you, anyway.'

The doctor ran out of the room crying.


	13. Hope

'Hooooooooow-use!' Eric Foreman squealed, wearing a yellow Pikachu onsie while he stood in House's office of adventure. 'You've gotta see this!'

The two diagnozzles sprinted towards the hospital's playground at heal neck speed. Cameron was clapping her hands in front of Chase, and singing 'Dum-dum-dum-Dum-dum-dum-Dum-dum-dum-Dum-dum-dum.'

Chase was both glowing, pulsating, and roaring in pain. Beautiful butterfly wings unfurled from his antipodean shoulder blades; they had a tessellating pattern of snakes getting intimate with a staff. Doctors know this symbol as the Staff of Asclepius.

Antennas sprutted above his eyebrows, and his face subtly changed shape. Something about him changed, there was a little more of the human about him. The difference was not as radical as that between Tony Abbot and Denis Napthine, but it was there. Chase was a whole new man, perhaps a whole new kind of man.

'Hoow doo yoo doo?' asked Chase. 'I am Chaase, aand Ii am haapy to meeeeet yooouuuu.'

The non-diagetic soundtrack music came on; _Lucky_ by Radiohead.


End file.
